Main Street
Dr. Ali Alshami; Heat Health Index; The Importance of Local Museums
Support for Prairie Public is provided by Josh Beauche, Broker in Real Tour with real Broker LLC, with a team of agents serving homebuyers, sellers, and investors throughout North Dakota, the Detroit Lakes area, and Northwest Minnesota. Josh can be reached at 701-367-3513. Welcome to this Tuesday's Main Street on the Radio Services of Prairie Public. I'm your host Craig Blumenshine. Later today on the show, our longtime friend Dr. Tom Ezernde stops by with another of his plain spoke essays. Dr. Ezernde makes the case that it is so important to support local museums here on the Great Plains, and we'll hear a conversation with Admiral Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health, on location at the 11th Annual Aspen Ideas Health Event held in Colorado. Admiral Levine chimes in on many topics, but we begin today by meeting Dr. Ali Ashami from the University of North Dakota. He recently won a Fulbright Research Grant, and, as we'll hear, he's trying to build better systems to desalinate water and generate electricity at the same time. Dr. Ali Ashami, along with Dr. Aaron Kennedy, have been selected to receive Fulbright United States Scholar Fellowship grants to engage in overseas research in the 2024-2025 grant cycle. Dr. Ashami is an associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of North Dakota, and he joins us today on Main Street. Dr. Ashami, welcome. Thank you. First, congratulations on receiving the Fulbright Award. That's outstanding. How did you learn about it? Thank you very much. So basically, it's like any other competition. It's been around for a very, very long time, so I applied for it back in September last year, and just tried my chances. And I think by December, I got the first notification that the first step was went through, and I was selected. As I understand an overview of your research, you work to develop a new material that can purify water and also generate electrical power. Basically, it's really not a brand new idea. It's an idea that's been tried. I think they've initially back in mid-70s. And then researchers looked away because of some of the associated problems. But the technology has come along far enough to the point that it's merits kind of re-looking at it. Among other drawbacks, the main thing was the material that was used for basically purifying or separating the water, you know, saline water, especially water with high salinity like sea water or some water that comes from the fracking industry and the oil exploration activities. Those waters have a very high amount of salts. So basically, now we are in a position that we can actually develop a good enough material that will actually overcome some of the challenges that it basically has a potential is still on the bench top. But it has a potential to go further, hopefully, and make this technology a little bit more cost effective. How did you initiate, I guess, the idea of collaborating with Qatar University, which is where you'll be working and sharing this research and developing this research. Correct. So I actually had mentioned it in a couple of places before, so this came out of a side conversation in a technical conference a few years back in Boston. So there are some researchers doing similar work to where we're doing working on membranes for water purification. For them there, desalination is a big issue. And basically, I gave a talk, I gave a presentation, and they team from Qatar University approached me and said, "Hey, we're working on the same idea as of developing these materials." Basically, we're looking at a collaboration or joint effort, and we would like to keep the conversation going and see what can we work on as it by all means, absolutely. So we kept the conversation going and back and forth, and we had virtual meetings, and we came up with the idea, said, "We actually can work on these membranes that you guys are working on from your end and the ones we're working on right now." But it would be really neat and interesting to revisit the idea of co-production. We can actually produce clean water and also get the power out of it. Just using that, basically the salinity gradient, it's strong enough to generate enough voltage and it will actually translate to cost savings in power. And they said, "Yeah, by all means we will be very interested in that." And that's how it came about. So you both have been working, and when I say you both, the University of North Dakota and Qatar University have been working on water purification using different materials. What's unique about your contributions, do you think, that you bring to this what will become a collaborative project? Well, from our end, we have a pretty good foundation for the membranes, for the polymeric, the plastic materials that we use as membranes, and we have kind of been working on as a way to minimize defects and basically improve their performance. These types of membranes, which are called RO membranes, are used now for a lot of water purifications, purposes even for domestic use. They have some sort of, like any other technology has pluses or minuses, and some of the minuses are that they have a very high defect, but also can require a lot of energy input. You have to have a lot of energy to push that water across this kind of material. So we've been working on that basically, specifically to reduce the energy intake or the amount of power it's used to push the water through. But also we have also, you know, the technology has matured or moved along enough to, we can actually use different materials, better, if you want, better chemistry to produce these materials. At Qatar University, where we're working on, they were trying to produce similar material, but using renewable sources, like they were actually using the waste from palm trees, palm trees, leaves, and the biomass that comes out of those trees and produce the molecules or the polymers that go similar to the polymers that we get from crude oil or synthetic oil. So they were trying to use those as a base material, and we said, okay, we have enough expertise that we, with the synthetic material, can we basically combine or actually synergize the two types of materials, see if we can achieve the same. So it is, they're too complement, they complement each other, the two approaches, and we wanted to see how far can we go with it. Dr. Shami, the concept to me of purifying water and generating electricity at the same time is compelling. It's very interesting. Is this a new idea? Has it always been thought about that, hey, if we can purify water, we can also generate electricity? As I had mentioned, it's not purely a new idea. As I said, there are some groups, especially out of Israel and some groups in Germany, a few years back, tried it, and they attempted to make it work, but it didn't make it all the way. It was still not cost effective, and I think it was almost like abandoned. We are almost re-engineering the approach of the process, and we're also attempting to come up with a new material that would make it cost effective or circumvent some of those issues that they faced when they attempted the first time. So the D itself is not new, but the approach is new. We're enjoying our conversation with Dr. Ali Ashami. He's an associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of North Dakota. He's been selected to receive a Fulbright U.S. Scholarship Fellowship grant to engage in overseas research for the 2024-2025 grant cycle. How do you envision, I guess, a project like this contributing to addressing the problem, particularly in the regions that have severe droughts or have always been water short? Yes. Water scarcity is a global issue. It's just getting more serious as you go by, but also energy itself is a global issue, if you will, in the same time. So basically, water and water desalination is a technology that is basically elevating some of the problems associated with the water scarcity. Unfortunately, very few nations and very few people can afford that technology, especially it's used in wealthy countries that they could afford to power those plants because they consume a lot of energy. But the rest of the world cannot afford that technology. The other thing is energy itself is pricey and costly for some nations to consume or to use or also to produce clean water. What we're looking for in our research is basically come on with technology can be more affordable, can consume less energy for other nations that are not wealthy enough to basically afford that technology. But in the same time, we are also looking into producing energy that will translate into a significant cost per kilowatt use. If this goes further and succeeds, we'll be looking at 7 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour savings to the energy bill. It falls within the water energy nexus, kind of a domain of research. It's been basically supported and pushed by a lot of countries, especially here in the US, the National Sands Foundation and the Department of Energy are quite supportive and they fund quite a bit of projects that fall into the water energy nexus and our project is one of them. What are the biggest challenges that you think you'll face in this research? Basically overcoming that hurdle, can we produce something that's defect free? Can we produce something that will basically cost effective to the point it makes it worthwhile for like a power grid to be integrated into the power grid and can be used and it can be efficient enough? It's still as of now because it's a bench top, the efficiency is still not where it should be compared to traditional conventional technologies. You've said there were defect free a couple times in our interview. What does that mean? Is that the outcome is water that is not drinkable? Is that a defect, the type of defect that you're talking about? No, the defects are in this semi-permeable material or a film. What's doing the separation is this plastic film, if you will, that prevents the salts and the other impurities of the water from going through and allows only pure water to pass. That film, it still cannot be produced as of now defect free. It will have some defects where it will have holes in it and then it will breakages that would allow some of those dissolved items or constituents to pass through. Those are the defects associated with that film that's doing the separation. Give us an idea of your academic journey, Dr. Ashamehwar. Where did you come from? Why are you so interested or why are you very interested in this particular topic of making water more, I guess, available, which would be huge for our country and our world? Sure, sure. Water purification is almost a personal quest of mine. I was born in Yemen in the Middle East. Yemen, Jordan, Israel, and a bunch of other Middle Eastern countries are bone dry. They have a severe water crisis. This has always been an issue. As you had mentioned, water crisis is global now. A lot of places in the world have problems with getting access to clean, potable water. It basically has been a personal quest of mine. As far as academic journey and education, I basically attended Washington State University as my first time. I did a way where I did my undergraduate degrees. Then I worked a little bit in the private sector industry, went back, did my masters, and also did the same thing. Took some time off to work, and they came back, did my PhD. All of them in Washington State University in chemical engineering. I developed my specialties or my interests in separation technologies, in chemical separation. I zoomed into separating of water and gases, but water has been my top priority. What was the title of your PhD thesis? It was a material base. It was bi-material, dielectric properties, prediction, and modeling. Tell me how you include students from the University of North Dakota in the research that you do. Dr. Asami? Sure. I have a pretty good-sized research group where it comprises of undergraduates, graduate students at the master's level and the PhD level. I have also postdocs that basically have completed their PhDs and joined our group to do their research before moving on to academic positions. Basically, the graduate students at the master's level, the PhD level, basically they apply to our program because of some areas of interest to them. We basically look at what interests them the most, what they want to work on. We have different faculty investigators in the department, and each one has different specialties. If the student has interest in separations in general, especially water purification and gas purification, they usually elect to basically work with me. They become basically team members. For the undergraduates, also the same thing, we do, you know, publicize our research in the classes we teach, and we say, "Okay, we have this faculty working on this area that's related to what you're studying." Chemical separations or separation is actually a major course in the chemical engineering curriculum. Sometimes it's a sequence of courses. Students will become very much interested in separations as a general topic, and we just say, "Hey, there's an opportunity for you to get hands-on experience," and you can participate in research going on in our department, and they express that interest, and we just bring them on. When do you go to Qatar and give us an idea of what your day-to-day life will be when you're there? Sure. Basically, it's just going to be the same thing in eight to five kind of a job. I will be teaching one course. I think they want me to teach, I think, engineering ethics, so I'll be teaching one course, I think, three times a week, but the rest of the time I'll be working with two centers. The gas processing center, which they do some work significantly, might work on water applications or water processes that basically, you know, from seawater and from their gas processing and oil exploration activities. The other center is the materials development center, and that's basically those are the ones I will be working with on this member and those films that are being used in this device, which we will be using for the separations. I'll be working with the two centers collaboratively or jointly whenever I'm not teaching. When do you go and how long will you be there? I, the Fulbright Fellowship officially or technically starts September 1st, but because their academic year starts August 18th, so I need to be there sometime by August 18th, and I'll be there until end of June next year. What are your probabilities of really being successful? Do you think Dr. Asham? Hi, I hope. Hi, I've been conversing with these two groups of these two centers. It seems like they're really on top of things. They're doing really good stuff, and it's just we are aiming high, and we'll see how far we can go. At this point, it's a proof of concept, and if we can get the module or this apparatus that we're trying to put together to work, that will be a success in itself. To get it to enhance it and improve it to basically overcome some of the cost limitations and some of the other, as I said, hurdles, that will be an extra in top of the success we realize. I'm optimistic that we will get the apparatus to work, but would it be commercially feasible? That would be a secondary question. Congratulations on your receiving the Fulbright U.S. Scholarship Fellowship Grant to engage in this research. That's just outstanding, Dr. Ashami. Thank you very much. Dr. Ali Ashami, he's an associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of North Dakota. He'll be traveling to Qatar as part of his Fulbright U.S. Scholarship Fellowship Grant, and he'll engage in research to better the idea of purifying salt water, and also perhaps better generating energy in the process. Dr. Ashami, thank you so much for joining us on Main Street. It's my pleasure. Thank you very much. Up next on Main Street, Dr. Tom Eason gives another of his Plains folk essays. Today, he makes the case for local historical museums. Dr. Eason writes that local museums are an undeveloped resource. There are scores of local historical museums across North Dakota. Nobody knows just how many. County museums, community museums, organizational museums, special interest museums. Some people regard this as a problem, for how can they be maintained and their collections cared for? We have more history than we have people. It's the too much mistake, many would say, echoing historian Elwin Robinson, who, although a great historian and teacher, well, let's just say there are a couple of things I would like to talk to him about. I'm thinking these local museums are an undeveloped resource. They are short of staff and money, but chock full of cool artifacts, great stories, and the sense of life on the Northern Plains. What is the case then for a mill levy, for community support, for investment in these museums? This question I mauled during the congruence of two activities. First, along with my students, participating in a cloud cataloging project for the Macintosh County Heritage Center. My friends in Ashley, like Randy Wall and Marvel Gross, along with Dale Lennon of the North Dakota Historical Foundation, got me into this. It makes me more aware than ever of the richness of local museum collections, but also the logistical problems of their curators. Second, and it was no coincidence, I reread a classic work on the practice of local history, Nearby History, by David E. Kivig and Myron A. Marty. This 1982 book came at the right moment to counterpoint the dead-end direction of scholarly history at the time, quantitative new social history. This type of history in the academy, innervated students, and the public, but local public history, the kind described by giving and Marty, generated enthusiasm. Now, on the prairies, 40 years later, that enthusiasm may be running out of gas, except at places like the Macintosh County Heritage Center, which is undergoing an efflorescence. And I'm all in, so what's our story? What's our case? My personal motivation may not be bersermane. I am engaged in the long-term reconsideration of the history of the Great Plains. We'll be doing this until I die, and local history gives me cases and texture. Nor will the personal interests of local partisans carry the day. Antiquarianism is nice, but it's not a public good. I suggest there are three levels of argument for local historical museums as a public good deserving of support. These will all sound academic wonky, so we'll have to work on translation. The first argument is transactional. Museums are resources and infrastructure for heritage tourism. Most of them don't look like it and are not well positioned to fill the role, but they can be. We should work on this, but it should not be the first priority. The second argument is relational. In communities challenged either by atrophy or chaos, this should be the first priority. Historical museums build relationships across groups and generations. They should be inclusive. Is there a daunting amount of work to do? Well, good. Antiquarians, if you really love this stuff, start networking and not just among your cronies. Bring people together to meet the challenges. Such relationships are good for their own sake, but they also get things done. This will allow us to talk about the third argument, which is communitarian. By engaging with artifacts and places and memory, we achieve identity. Identity that situates us in relation to one another and on the land. When we get to that point, then we are ready to invite the world in. That was our dear friend, Dr. Tom Ezern. He's a distinguished professor of history at North Dakota State University. Coming up, a conversation on healthcare with Admiral Rachel Levine. That's after this. Support for Prairie Public is provided by Jade Presents. Bringing the Stray Cats to Bluestem Amphitheater in Morehead, Thursday, August 8th. Catch songs like Runaway Boys, Rock This Town, and Stray Cat Stress. More info at jadepresence.com. Welcome back to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Buminshine. With much of the country suffering through a sweltering heat wave, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has unveiled a nationwide heat and health index. That's just one of the many topics we'll learn about today in an excerpt from the Conversations on Healthcare podcast. Host Mark Miscelli and Margaret Flittner visited with Admiral Rachel Levine, the department's assistant secretary for health, on location at the 11th Annual Aspen Ideas Health Event, held in Colorado. We pick up that conversation as they discuss the possibility of bird flu infecting humans. Former CDC director Robert Redfield said he thinks bird flu will enter humans and his sort of prognest indication is significant mortality. What's your sense of what's happening out there? We don't know that right now and so it depends upon what time period you're looking at over the next hundred years or more. So, you know, pandemics do happen and of course we have just come out of the acute phase of the biggest pandemic that we have seen since the 1918 influenza pandemic. So, we don't know the future but we certainly know that there are many challenges that we have to prepare for and so that is what the Biden-Harris administration is doing with their new office of public health preparedness led by retired general Friedrich and then our secretary and then I work with the CDC and Asper and really across HHS is that we recognize the challenges with H5N1 and we're working with our colleagues at the USDA in terms of the cattle herds that have been impacted and the three individuals that have had mild forms of H5N1 in the United States and we are working together every day across HHS with USDA, with the White House and more to make sure that we are prepared whatever the eventuality is. But a better early warning system than we've had before. We do. We have a better warning system and we have to even make it even better, right? So, there's always continued improvements that we can make but we are working on that every day. Well, here we are in Aspen in addition to the cottonwoods. We've also been treated to cool nights, breezy days, sunshine and yet at the same time we know across the country and particularly on the east coast right now but we've also seen out west people are really suffering under extreme heat and I know the Biden-Harris administration has just released a plan for dealing with extreme heat particularly in communities that are most effective by it and where we see the biggest inequities from climate change and increased heat. Tell us about that. So, that's exactly right. So, through our work with our office of climate change and health equity as well as with the CDC and more, we have released a heat health index looking at the zip code level about all the different factors that would influence extreme heat but then other factors as well that would influence the health of people, other aspects of the social determinants of health. And so, this is at the zip code level in the continental United States and it's really an important tool for us in the federal government but also for state and local governments to look at different jurisdictions that are going to be most at risk of heat and heat impacting health and influencing people most at risk including children and babies but also seniors and also workers that have to work in that heat. So, you're exactly right. We are seeing heat-related injury throughout the and health problems throughout the United States and globally and that certainly impacts and shows the impact of climate change on health. In our day jobs, we run a large federally qualified health center and we know with young people coming in, we have this conversation about the environment and unless we strike that note about the environment, we're going to lose whole generation of young people into the public health arena because we are tone deaf about the environment but let's talk a little larger about climate and the catastrophes that are happening out there and there's been conversations here today. How would you frame up about where we are in terms of not survivability but, you know, how the planet is doing? Absolutely. Well, first, I want to give a shout out to federally qualified health centers, our community health centers. You all do absolutely fantastic work and really work towards the common good and help people. So, thank you. So, you know, 2023 was the hottest year on record. We're on track to beat that in 24 and, you know, 2023 might be the coolest year that we ever see in our lifetime because the impacts of climate change and extreme heat but there are many other climate related challenges that we're that we're seeing including extreme storms, hurricanes and more but also other storms across the continent in the United States that are exacerbated, that are stoked by climate change. We're also seeing the impacts of sea level rise on our coasts. We're seeing the impact of forest fires and the resulting smoke which are common here in the west but we saw even in Washington DC and was seen in New York City last summer. We're also seeing the increase in vector-borne diseases particularly dengue which is a mosquito-borne disease in many parts of the South America and to the Caribbean and more coming up because of the range of the mosquitoes is increasing because of climate change. In Pennsylvania where I'm from we have seen an increase in Lyme disease to every county in Pennsylvania where previously a number of years ago it was only in the warmer southeast. So, we are seeing these impacts of climate change on health and health is finally at the table in terms of the climate discussion. The secretary has a seat on the national climate task force. I had the opportunity to go to COP 28 in Dubai where we had the first ever climate and health day to talk about these issues globally. And so, you know, the Biden-Harris administration is committed to addressing the root causes of climate change and the health impact. What's your message to the K to 12-year-olds about their how they can participate in absolutely improve them? Well, my message to young people and again, I'm a pediatrician, adolescent medicine specialist, is I'm a positive and optimistic person and my message is the message of hope for the future. The young people are our future and we want them to understand the realistic challenges that we face but to work towards the changes that we need to make but to have hope for our future. You know, climate impacts are health impacts and so they really are, they really go together and all together we're going to make the changes that are necessary. Well, I appreciate that vote of confidence and forward motion. We're here at Aspen. There have been a lot of discussions on different panels. Anything that jumped out at you that people are speaking to in terms of addressing catastrophic climate change? Well, we just had a panel, for example, with Dr. Vanessa Carey and another woman actually is from the South Pacific and it was a very interesting panel about the global aspects of climate change and then from my perspective, the domestic aspects of climate change and all the work that we need to do. And you know, the world is watching. Our young people are watching. Exactly. And they're not just seeing what we say. They are watching as young people do is what we do. What are we doing to impact that? And we're going to do everything we can to do that. Our work with our Office of Climate Change and Health Equity is working with the health sector on one resilience to the impacts of climate change and then also actually to work towards decarbonization with money from the Inflation Reduction Act. So that was a very impactful session. I've heard there've been other sessions about food and nutrition security, which is absolutely critical as well as food is medicine. So, so many vibrant topics at Aspen health ideas. You know, one of the challenges I think America faces and maybe globally is that people are not trusting science. And adding fuel to that fire is that there's been a number of research misconducts that have been identified. But I know this is important to you about establishing trust in science. That's exactly what we're trying to build that back. Talk to what the problems are and how we're going to go about and trying to solve this. Sure. Well, there are two aspects of that, which I think are very important. The first is the mistrust in science itself and the misinformation and overt disinformation, particularly on social media about science. And for example, about the health and safety of vaccines. You know, vaccines are one of the victories of public health in the 21st century. And so it is so important that we keep up our childhood immunizations, our adolescents and adult immunizations that we keep up immunizations for influenza and for COVID-19 as well across the United States and globally. So we're continuing to work and try to refine our public health communications. In terms of research, actually, within my office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, we have an office of research integrity. Looking at just the things you talked about, research misconduct and working to investigate that and take appropriate actions, working with the NIH and working with academic medicine and with other research institutions. So it's an absolutely critical, important office that is absolutely a priority because we have to make sure that the research that we put out there is accurate and has no miscommunication in itself. And I want to get back to communication social media. And one hand social media is a sinkhole of maybe disinformation, but on the other hand, it's what young people are listening to. How are you rethinking reimagining the delivery of very vital information on things like TikTok and other means that young people are listening to? Well, the federal government doesn't use TikTok. But we do use other mediums such as X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Instagram and other platforms. And we want to make sure that we work with trusted messages for young people and adults to get the word out about public health and such important topics, such as vaccinations. But there's another side to social media for young people. And that's one of the things that our fantastic Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy is talking about. And he put out an amazing op-ed a week or so ago in the New York Times, a previous Surgeon General's advisory about some of the potential dangers of social media for young people, particularly young adolescents and how they can be misled on social media, how it can come to dominate their life, how they can be bullied on social media and social media harassment. And he wants to put out a Surgeon General's warning about this. Now that will take an act of Congress to be able to do that. But I think that his op-ed has put a set of marker for conversation and discussion. And it certainly has gotten that. There has been a lot of conversation about that. And then different ways that we can protect young people and protect our society from some of the negative sides of social media. And so I think it's a very important conversation to have. And I applaud Dr. Murthy, our Surgeon General for starting and continuing and enhancing that conversation. We talked a little bit about mental health with the children and social media. But mental health generally has really taken a very prominent place in the administration's focus. I think you were on a panel here speaking to mental health issues, workforce, community support, digital tools. Tell me what you're feeling hopeful about and what you see as maybe pragmatically likely to get some more attention in the coming year. Well, we have certainly seen significant mental health challenges across the United States and globally that has been exacerbated by the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so we are seeing significant mental health challenges. Again, you know, I'm a pediatrician adolescent medicine specialist in young people, but adults as well and seniors and across the lifespan. So there has been a tremendous amount of work called for by the president and the vice president and then work on through the leadership of our secretary with all of the divisions at HHS on this. So of course, SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration, has much a lot of work in terms of mental health for youth and adults. And so lots of work being done on access, on the workforce, on tele mental health and more. And so, you know, I think we're starting to make a difference. I think we're starting to see a change, but there's much more work to go. The other aspect of that with mental health that I want to emphasize is the disease of addiction and the overdose crisis that we're seeing, particularly with fentanyl related compounds, but then other novel compounds such as xylosine, which is a veterinary anesthetic. And so, you know, with our president, with our secretary's overdose prevention strategy, working on prevention and all of its aspects, harm reduction, harm reduction, including naloxone and other overdose prevention agents, fentanyl test strips, xylosine test strips, evidence-based syringe service programs and more, treatment for addiction, particularly medication for opioid use disorder with buprenorphine and other compounds, and then getting people into recovery using peer specialists and more. And we are just starting to see an impact, just starting to see a leveling out, but it still is a crisis that we're emphasizing. We follow that by community and zip code level. And it is when you think of a small city and 160 people in a year lost to opioid overdose, it's just tragic. It is tragic. And it's something I've been working on throughout my career in public service, starting in Pennsylvania with a standing order prescription for naloxone for the needs for the state, and then including my work here in collaboration with Assistant Secretary Delphin Rittman and then many others in the administration. We are committed to making an impact. And it's so important, you know, we say that social isolation is the modern day leprosy and trying to figure out how we help build communities, because again, we have some of the science where we can help prevent that. But again, I think young people are feeling the sense of isolation. We could point it at social media, but there are many factors that go into it. So it's important to emphasize, of course, this series of general has also been talking about loneliness and social isolation as well. And at this point, I think it's critically important to mention the 988 hotline, the 988 suicide and mental health hotline, and how important that is to have to have someone that can train a professional that can talk with someone. It's available throughout the country. It even has a prompt, prompt three, through text chat or texting for phone calls for young people in the LGBTQI+ community, for someone that's trained with our community to be able to respond. So 988 is so critically important. Well, I know that we have talked about COVID, long COVID, and everything COVID for years in events, but I'm going to swing back to long COVID again for a minute and ask if there's anything on the agenda that you're working on on long COVID, because like so many things, this is affecting a group of people profoundly. And yet we don't see too much coming out in terms of treatment and resolution. We're learning some new things from research, but update us. Well, long COVID is critically important and is an absolute focus of our work. So long COVID is real. That is the first thing that we want to emphasize from the beginning, because there has been misinformation about that. So long COVID is real, but long COVID might not be one thing. It's complex. And so as our other infection-related chronic illnesses, and so we are really taking an approach looking at short and short, medium and long-term successes and outcomes in order to address this. So we have our office of long COVID research and practice that is nested in my office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, and we are playing a coordinating role, for example, with the NIH in their recover project. The recover project is going a pace. It is going as fast as humanly possible. That includes the clinical trials that are progressing. They're going to be opening the final two clinical trials this summer. You know, it's hard to put a timetable on when clinical trials will end and when science will have a result, but we're very hopeful for those clinical trials. We have heard that there are others working on clinical trials and wells, and we certainly support that. In addition, we're getting very important other data from recover, as well as CDC research, as well as great research from the VA. We're working with HRSA on making sure that primary care doctors are educated. This work is happening across the administration. It is a priority of the administration. We have actually every month or so a long COVID coordinating committee meeting involving almost every agency administration, and we're going to do everything we can to support people impacted by long COVID and their families in our communities. That's fantastic. One last question, but I'm going to note that Margaret Flinner joined the Community Health Center 45 years ago. It's part of the Commission Court, a scholar program. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about the court because it's such an important vital resource to all Americans. Thank you so much for emphasizing that. One of the biggest honors that I have as the Assistant Secretary for Health is the opportunity to take my commission and assume the uniform and to lead with the Surgeon General, the United States Public Health Service Commission Corps, and that includes over 5,600 dedicated medical and public health professionals that serve the disadvantaged communities in our nation and throughout the world. That includes 1,500 or more officers that serve in the Indian Health Service. We provide medical care for the Coast Guard. We provide medical care, the Federal Bureau of Prisons. We provide medical care for ICE detention centers and in other very challenging and remote areas of our country, but also work for the National Park Service and more. So, you know, they are absolutely fantastic officers. The Surgeon General and I are working with our staff to do everything we can to support them. We have the only uniform public health service in the world. It's a national treasure that we are proud to support. Wonderful. Well, Admiral Levine, we thank you for your dedication, for your service, and your relentless optimism that there is a solution to each of these major problems that we talk about. And we want to thank our audience, as always, for joining us. Don't forget you can find us on X on Facebook, on YouTube, look at CHC radio, and we always welcome your comments and your questions. Admiral Levine, thank you and continued courage and strength to fight a good battle. Thank you. We're going to fight the good fight and work towards the common good. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. Conversations on health care is produced by the Community Health Center of Connecticut and is hosted by Mark Micelli and Margaret Flittner. Dakota Datebook is ahead. Hey, I'm Elsa Chang from NPR. I host all things considered, and so I'm tuned into the news all the time because I'm dedicated to making sure that you understand what's going on in the world during your commute home. I interview public officials, other leaders in our federal government all the time. That's an important part of what I do, but talking to artists, writers, other creatives, and you know the everyday people who are at the center of stories that we're reporting on, that is what I really care about. And I hope what comes out of your speakers or into your earbuds springs you some joy that someone's story can add a little brightness to your day. I've been asking you a series of questions to get you to brag about this heroic role that you have played in the history of this community in Asian-American activism, and I feel your humility. I did get picked to toss the ball at the A's game. Nice! For Asian Heritage Month. The stories that we bring to you on NPR are made possible by our member stations and their supporters. I hope that you will become a sustaining member of Prairie Public right now. Just go to prairiepublic.org and open the link that says donate. And thank you. This is Dakota Daybook for July 30th. On a cold December day in 1990, the Birch family of Buchanan went to a neighbor's farm to help clean turkeys. While the parents were busy working, the three Birch siblings, Whalen, Jarrett, and Andrea, played on the banks of the Pipestone River. Five-year-old Andrea walked about 10 feet onto the river ice and fell through. Quick-thinking 10-year-old Whalen sent his brother Jarrett to tell their parents as he tried to help his sister. Unfortunately, Whalen also fell through the ice, and neither he nor Andrea knew how to swim. Whalen kicked as hard as he could to stay afloat, pulling his sister's head above water so she could breathe. He only had strength enough to keep her up about 30 seconds at a time. Their parents, Dean and Terry, quickly arrived at the terrifying scene. Dean slid across the ice on his stomach and pulled the children out. At first, it wasn't apparent if Andrea was breathing, but she quickly recovered. Fortunately, both Andrea and Whalen were unharmed. Whalen's quick-thinking and bravery had saved his sister's life. Three months later, Whalen was presented the Governor's Life Saving Award by Governor George Sinner, becoming the youngest North Dakota recipient of the award. Sinner hung a medal around Whalen's neck and gave him a high five. The medal was inscribed with the words, "It is in great dangers that we see. Great courage." Whalen's bravery did not go unnoticed outside of North Dakota. On this date, in 1993, the Bismarck Tribune announced that Whalen Birch had received the Young American Medal for Bravery from President Bill Clinton at the White House. The award, for Americans Under 18, is a Justice Department program started in 1951. Whalen Birch's bravery in saving his sister led to him receiving the highest honor a young American can win for bravery. Today's Dakota Date Book written by Trista Razor-Stirza. I'm Ann Alquist. Dakota Date Book is produced in cooperation with the State Historical Society of North Dakota, with funding by Humanities North Dakota. North Dakota's largest lifelong learning community. Arts programming on Prairie Public is supported in part by the North Dakota Council on the Arts, a state agency developing, promoting, and supporting the arts in North Dakota. The U.S. men's gymnastics team broke their 16-year medal drought, clenching bronze in the all-around. But for Frederick Richard, this is only the beginning. He's on a mission. Every competition I go to, I look in the crowd and I see, you know, a lot of seats open. I say, "I want to change this and this is the first step." Now we come back from the Olympics and we make that really happen. How the 20-year-old rookie hopes to change men's gymnastics on the next morning edition from NPR News. Weekdays beginning at 4 a.m. Central here on Prairie Public. And that's a wrap for this Tuesday edition of Main Street. Tomorrow, we'll visit with North Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jensen. Our discussion will cover the judicial system, the rule of law, the importance of trusting our independent judicial branch, and the concerns Chief Justice Jensen has about the way Supreme Court justices are selected here in North Dakota. We hope you can join us again tomorrow on Main Street. [Music]